WEEDS DAY
Date
2020.09-2020.11
Type
Social Design, Product design, Graphic design
Theme
Urbanization,
Environment-friendly,
Skills
Rhino, Photoshop, Model Making, Blender
Introduction
Set up the weed day and a series of social designs to change people's prejudice against weeds. I created Weeds Day and organize activities to call on people to break the prejudice against weeds and advocate the establishment of a diversified city.
Background
The environmental degradation and housing shortage brought about by urbanization prompt people to think about the direction of future development in the city. The abandoned weed ecosystem in the urban ecosystem of the Anthropocene aroused my interest.
Research
The environmental degradation and housing shortage brought about by urbanization prompt people to think about the direction of future development in the city. The abandoned weed ecosystem in the urban ecosystem of the Anthropocene aroused my interest.
Weeds is a very subjective term. If people don't mind what they grow on the lawn, they are no longer weeds. However, when I research weeds, I found that 90% of the information on the Internet is about weeding. The roads in the city are supposed to be clean and tidy, and weeds can only be seen in the wild.
In China's metropolises, we always see neat greenery planted and trimmed by workers and monotonous man-made buildings, which lack regional characteristics and the wild beauty of the original natural environment.
During the research, I found that weeds also have positive effects on the city.
Economic benefits:
Compared with exterior green seedlings, native plants are more adaptable to the local environment and help reduce greening maintenance costs.
Ecological benefits:
Native plants and other local animals and plants have co-evolved for a long time and become habitats for many wild things. For example, Milkweed is considered a weed, but it has great ecological benefits for monarch butterflies. This is the only plant that monarch butterfly larvae will eat.
Proposal
It is time to change people’s bias toward weeds, and people should realize that weeds are actually beneficial to the city. Sustainable cities are not only tidy but also diverse and inclusive. In order to convey my ideas, I set up Weeds Day on May 10, 2021. We oppose artificial nature and clean but cold modern cities and advocate the establishment of sustainable cities where humans and other creatures can coexist harmoniously.
WIKI and LOGO
Product design
This is a public park chair designed for weeds. Initially, its users are people, who can sit and rest on it. As time passes, plants grow out from the inside of the chair and cover the whole chair, making it lose its function as a seat, and its user changes from a human to a native plant. When people can appreciate weeds, they can also accept them.
Many native plants can attract bees and butterflies as well as birds. As time passes, there will be a small ecosphere.
Accumulated water for birds
Cement structure
Holey cement
Soil and seeds
The user transformed from human to native plants
Public chair to Public sculpture
Time
Poster design
The city was originally a wilderness with perfect ecological functions. Humans expelled the native species here and carried out urban construction and artificial greening here.
Weeds were the aborigines of the city, and this was originally their paradise.
Postcard design
I replaced the stamps on the postcards with seeds, and the seeds are sent to various places along with the postcards.
Product design
The DIY planting box contains seeds, a flowerpot, a watering can, soil, and a shovel. I distributed the planting boxes to the children and took them to grow weeds together.
01 soil 02 Sow weed seeds 03 Watering
Activity
In addition to the diversity of plants, I realized that the people in the city are also diverse. In the process of urban construction, a large number of peasants came from the countryside to the city, and also brought various cultures and plants. Some urban fringe groups, such as migrant workers and delivery workers, have similarities with weeds. In the process of gentrification, they were driven out of the city. After entering the wild environment, the slight differences between them were ignored and replaced by the characteristics of barbaric growth.
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